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Counting crisis in schools
As reported in the Sunday Herald Sun, 23 October 2005
News Section, Page 24
Education Reporter: Tony Rindfleisch
Thousands of Victorian students are leaving school unable to do basic maths.
International studies have found that 35 percent of Australian Year 8 students cannot identify fractions or make simple calculations when grocery shopping.
Many would struggle to read a train timetable or decide which mobile phone plan offered the best value. Research has also found:
FEAR and anxiety about maths is widespread among students and restricts performance.
MOST of the reasons for maths failure related to curriculum and teaching methods rather than students' lack of ability.
NORMAL students were put into remedial classes because they had not been taught well earlier.
JUMPING from primary to secondary school maths is a major hurdle for students and a headache for education departments.
TEACHERS can graduate from university with only Year 10 maths.
The crisis in maths skills is being tackled by a $7.8 million Federal Government project aimed at re-writing maths textbooks and providing new online materials and intensive training for teachers.
The director of the project based at Melbourne University, Prof Garth Gaudry, said there was a shortage of well qualified maths teachers.
Education bureaucrats were constantly pushing for the curriculum to be watered down to make studies easier, he said. Prof Gaudry's national project will be piloted in 40 Victorian secondry schools next year.
The four-year project aims to improve maths learning and teaching in Years 5 to 10.
Teachers had a need for well-constructed materials and parents wanted books which enabled them to help with homework, Pof Gaudry said.
Maths that troubles Year 8 Students
Fractions
Grocery Shopping
Reading Train Timetables
Choosing mobile phone plans
Estimating answers
TROUBLESOME QUESTIONS
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Question: A department store offers 20 per cent discount. If a suitcase sells for the discounted price of $260, what was the original price?
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Answer: $325
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Question: You leave Geraldton traveling at $85 km/h at the same time that I leave Carnarvon traveling at 95 km/h. If the distance between Carnarvon and Geraldton is 450km, when do we meet?
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Answer: We meet after 2.5 hours, when I have traveled 237.5km from Carnarvon and you have traveled 212.5km from Geraldton.
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Editorial, page 38
Who Counts?
ANOTHER old value lost to our children is the ability to use numbers without breaking into a nervous sweat. As reported in the Sunday Herald Sun today (October 23, 2005), our schools are turning out young adults so inept at basic mathematics they cannot perform simple calculations nor read a timetable.
They have no idea because their teachers too often are also dunces when it comes to maths, a lamentable state of affairs that demands higher standards in teaching and more a rigorous school syllabus.
The Education and Training Committee’s maths and science inquiry will report to Parliament by September.
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